The present invention relates generally to video processing, and more particularly to, detecting scene changes in video using a histogram of frame differences.
Scene change detection is used to detect a significant change in content between consecutive frames in a video sequence. For example, significant changes in content occur when a program switches to a commercial or another program, or switches to a different scene in the same program.
Accurate scene change detection may be used to improve the performance of different video processing algorithms. For example, it may be used in video enhancement algorithms to adjust certain parameters for different scene content. Scene change detection may also be used in video compression algorithms. For example, it may be used to determine when a new group of pictures has to be started or to anticipate bit rate changes.
A number of scene change detection techniques already exist. One technique take histograms of individual frames and then performs a comparison between the histograms of consecutive frames in order to detect a scene change. This technique works well in some situations. However, problems arise when the consecutive frames have similar pixel values in different positions. In this situation, the histograms of these two frames would be quite similar and thus would prevent a scene change from being detected.
Another technique uses coding information in order to detect a scene change. For example, this technique looks for an increase in a particular type of block in B-frames and P-frames in order to detect a scene change. This technique works well for B-frames and P-frames, however, it cannot be used for I-frames.